“President Donald Trump on Thursday fired Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress — the first woman and first African-American to hold the position. She was informed of the decision in a terse, two-sentence email.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
A woman had accused the writer-director of Crash of raping her repeatedly over the course of two days in 2022 while they were both in Brindisi for an entertainment-industry event. A judge has ruled that no consensual sex took place in this instance. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
“According to governmental documents posted online, Trump has nominated Mary Anne Carter to reassume her post as NEA head, a position she left in 2021 when Joe Biden became President.” - ARTnews
“They may be less all-encompassing than the famous symphonies, but Mahler’s songs are miniature masterpieces, ranking alongside the greatest by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf. They are marvels: songs as expressive and finely crafted as the famous symphonies are visceral and overwhelming.” - The Guardian
“Historically, Hollywood has played a double role in U.S. soft power: It gave the country global relevance as a source of popular culture that was attractive in its own right, and it also presented an attractive ethical system and way of life that was distinct from that experienced elsewhere." - The Hollywood Reporter
Plenty of studies, some of them published by the Arts Endowment, have shown how arts participation in early childhood appears to awaken greater social skills...
At Indiana University each spring there is an arts festival in honor of Kurt Vonnegut, Granfalloon. This year’s theme is his novel Cat’s Cradle, which is...
Rather than freezing, fleeing or fighting, I propose that you forge. Forging ahead is an intentional approach to engaging with people who say or write offensive, disparaging, insulting or discriminating words. - Psyche
Fewer working-age adults entails a shrinking tax base, even as the need for public services swells. Education, healthcare, infrastructure, public safety and welfare will be underfunded. The pie will shrink. And as lifespans grow, the demand for healthcare will increase while the number of healthcare workers decreases. - Aeon
Paradoxical though it may seem, studies have found that many creative people had difficult childhoods. Indeed, many well-known artists owe their genius to tough childhood events, from which they escaped by creating mental worlds where they were free to develop their talents. - PsyPost
According to a recent YouGov poll, Americans rate the 2020s as the worst decade in a century for music, movies, fashion, TV, and sports. A 2023 story in The New York Times Magazine declared that we’re in the “least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.”...
For one thing, there is a desire in conversations to be cooperative with your partner. When they ask a question, the default cooperative answer is usually “yes,” so you often go with that default. On top of that, it you may feel deficient if you’re lacking knowledge or awareness...
“According to governmental documents posted online, Trump has nominated Mary Anne Carter to reassume her post as NEA head, a position she left in 2021 when Joe Biden became President.” - ARTnews
Ric Grenell, reacting Wednesday to headlines about cast members of Les Misérables who are planning to boycott President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance next month, demanded career-altering consequences for “vapid and intolerant artists.” - The Daily Beast
The company said operating profit at its domestic theme park division had climbed 13 percent from a year earlier, to $1.82 billion. Revenue increased 9 percent, to $6.5 billion. Park attendance was up. Hotel room bookings were up. And spending on merchandise and food was up. - The New York Times
The concept of “cultural-retail” has seeped into the fabric of Hong Kongers’ lives, with new properties such as Airside and The Henderson finding inspiration and creating a vision for a Hong Kong that appreciates art and cultural experiences. - HypeBeast
All 10 directors who oversee grants in various disciplines of the arts — such as museums, theater, design, and folk and traditional arts — are leaving the agency, according to a review of emails obtained by The Washington Post. - Washington Post (MSN)
In recent years, the idea has made the leap to the MAGA right. Along the way, it has become something very different: not a tool to more equitably distribute educational resources but a weapon to make elite higher education poorer, weaker, and less influential. - The Atlantic (MSN)
“They may be less all-encompassing than the famous symphonies, but Mahler’s songs are miniature masterpieces, ranking alongside the greatest by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf. They are marvels: songs as expressive and finely crafted as the famous symphonies are visceral and overwhelming.” - The Guardian
The sheer size of Classical California’s listenership is remarkable in the face of algorithmic streams and the wide array of music available only a few clicks away. - San Francisco Classical Voice
“At times, it made him ‘very determined to therefore be on that stage’; at other times it made him feel that he wasn’t sure he could. ‘But my family, and particularly my parents, were very helpful, either talking to us very honestly or shielding us, depending on what was appropriate’.” - The Guardian
“Having a choice didn’t come into it as there was none and never had been. I couldn’t pretend to be anyone I wasn’t but somehow, I had to place Black and classical next to each other in a way that made perfect, undeniable and glorious sense.” - The Guardian
The most enthusiasm was reserved for Delta David Gier, who was closing out the South Dakota Symphony’s season with one of the ensemble’s great achievements, for the community and American opera alike. - The New York Times
Patricia Racette, who made her debut at the Met in 1995, is known for her portrayals of Puccini heroines. She has also ventured into other genres, including cabaret, which she said she hoped to bring to St. Louis. She said opera companies should not fear crossover repertoire. - The New York Times
This French museum’s show offers a flashback to the era when, apart from the works including those displayed here, the artists who created them were reviled and persecuted. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
“The highly resistant mold covers objects in a white coating and has been detected in 12 museums, including the National Museum of Denmark and Skagens Museum. Known as aspergillus section restricti, it belongs to a group of fungi that can survive in extreme environments such as the deep ocean or near volcanoes.” - The Guardian
“It transformed, for better and worse, audience expectations at museums worldwide. … It taught curators to propound a global view of art — or perhaps no view at all. Its influence ripples through the rethought MoMA — but also the selfie stations of the Museum of Ice Cream.” - The New York Times
“The cuts will affect 20 full-time and nine part-time workers, and eliminate another 13 positions that were either vacant or would not be backfilled … as the museum grapples with low visitorship, loss of funding and a multimillion-dollar structural budget deficit.” - KQED (San Francisco)
The Piprahwa gems were discovered on the estate of an English landowner in India in 1898; they were inside reliquaries labeled as containing the cremains of Siddhartha Gautama himself. Sotheby’s was set to auction them in Hong Kong this week — until India demanded their repatriation and threatened lawsuits. - NBC News
Now it is in the cross-hairs of President Trump, who issued an executive order in March that seeks to address what he described as the Smithsonian’s promotion of “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive,” singling out the African American museum as a particular offender. - The New York Times
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Profile Theatre, one of Portland’s most acclaimed cultural institutions, seeks a collaborative, entrepreneurial, and inclusive leader to serve as its Managing Director.
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Michael Billington: “There is more to (Arthur Miller’s play) than a single political parallel and, whenever I see the play, I am struck by its capacity to take on new meanings and to reflect the pressure of the times. I would cite three revivals in proof.” - The Guardian
Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree, written to be performed by Crouch and a new actor each night, depicts a meeting between a father (the actor) whose 12-year-old daughter was killed in a crash and the man (Crouch) driving the other vehicle. The actor must be completely unfamiliar with the piece. - The Guardian
“(The show) brought in $4,003,481.50 last week, becoming the first Broadway play to surpass $4 million in a single week. The play also broke its own record, yet again, as the highest grossing play in Broadway history … (after it) received five Tony Award nominations, including one for Clooney.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“Performers and stage managers at Chicago’s venerable comedy venue The Second City are threatening to strike if they are unable to reach an agreement with management over wage increases. … Negotiations between Actors Equity and leadership at The Second City have been ongoing since February; … the current contract expired April 13.” - WBEZ...
This is his first Pulitzer, though he has been a finalist twice before. The production, directed by Phylicia Rashad, originated at Steppenwolf in Chicago and is currently on Broadway. The other finalists for this year's award were Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! and Itamar Moses’s The Ally. - The Hollywood Reporter
The most memorable offerings didn’t care a whit about product-testing strategies. What marketing genius, for instance, could have predicted that “Maybe Happy Ending,” a jazz-infused rom-com about robots and mortality that originated in South Korea. - Los Angeles Times
“The seven accused, of whom only one was present in court, were found guilty of sending hate messages, and even a death threat, to Thomas Jolly, 43, over a controversial scene in the ceremony” which some incorrectly interpreted as a parody of the Last Supper. - France 24
Dances that put artists and audience members in close proximity—whether they’re immersive, invite (or demand) audience participation, or have moments where the fourth wall is broken—can foster a powerful sense of intimacy and immediacy. - Dance Magazine
Sonja Kostich studied at Baryshnikov’s School of Classical Ballet and was 17 when he invited her to join ABT. She went on to dance with his White Oak Dance Project as well as San Francisco and Zurich Ballets. As an administrator, she has led Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. - CultureMap...
“Melissa Toogood, a Bessie Award-winning dancer who was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in its final years, succeeds Alicia Graf Mack, who is to become the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Toogood, who is Australian and lives in Sydney, will begin on July 1.” - The New York Times
When I scrubbed in for my first surgery, it felt strangely familiar—there was music playing, overhead lights shining, and a team working in synchrony, each person with a precise role. The energy reminded me of a performance. - Pointe Magazine
Mejia is an airborne dancer whose exuberance shines in joyful Balanchine ballets like “Stars and Stripes,” “Rubies” and “Western Symphony.” But his repertoire, especially in recent seasons, has expanded to roles that require him to be more subtle, more sophisticated. - The New York Times
“President Donald Trump on Thursday fired Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress — the first woman and first African-American to hold the position. She was informed of the decision in a terse, two-sentence email.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
“Some authors say they're out thousands of dollars after carting books and merchandise to Baltimore for the event” — A Million Lives Book Festival — “and not being able to recoup the costs. … “(Organizer) Archer Management has since apologized for the entire event and stated that refunds are being processed automatically.” - CBC
Here’s what happens when the Pulitzer board either (a) considers none of the three finalists submitted by the jury in a category a worthy winner or, as in this case, (b) can’t find consensus on a single choice among the submitted finalists. - The New York Times
Management began reviewing all store materials after receiving a complaint from a customer against profanity on a greeting card. What began as a purge of purportedly profane materials, including greeting cards, stickers and book titles with swear words, quickly escalated into the quiet removal of more than 60 books from the store. - NBCNews
Percival Everett’s James continued its run of awards with the fiction prize, while Benjamin Nathans’s To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause won for nonfiction, Tessa Hulls’s Feeding Ghosts won for autobiography, Marie Howe’s New and Selected Poems won for poetry, and Jason Roberts’s Every Living Thing won for biography. - Publishers Weekly
The library records more than 180,000 annual visits, one of the highest figures in Alabama, in a city of 25,000. It has been called Fairhope’s Taj Mahal. Now, it is also a battleground. Residents have packed meetings of the City Council and the library board, debating books with sexual content or L.G.B.T.Q. themes. - The...
“Historically, Hollywood has played a double role in U.S. soft power: It gave the country global relevance as a source of popular culture that was attractive in its own right, and it also presented an attractive ethical system and way of life that was distinct from that experienced elsewhere." - The Hollywood Reporter
“Despite the small budget, the film went on to become a comedy classic that influenced Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons and countless other comedies. Now 50 years after its release, it continues to serve as inspiration for new generations of comedians and writers.” - NPR
“Anyone trying to draw any conclusions about the success or appeal of movie theatres from the results of the first quarter of 2025 is likely to be mistaken, because the industrywide domestic box office in Q1 was in our view a distorting anomaly that has already corrected itself." - Deadline
It’s an attack on the free press, and the very idea of an American public sphere: where information and ideas flow freely, everyone has access to the arts, and neighbors are connected, to one another and to those in power.” - InsideRadio
How would tariffs on overseas film production work when the industry's so internationalized? Whom would be charged, at what point? Are such tariffs even legal? Would a US tax incentive be instead of or in addition to tariffs? How did the entire industry get upended by one social media post? - TheWrap (MSN)
While tariffs are unlikely to have the effect Trump claims he wants, a federal tax credit program for filmmakers—something California politicians spent years advocating for—could be a much stronger alternative. - Wired
A woman had accused the writer-director of Crash of raping her repeatedly over the course of two days in 2022 while they were both in Brindisi for an entertainment-industry event. A judge has ruled that no consensual sex took place in this instance. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
“Arsenije Lojovic will serve eight years instead of 10 for dangerous driving causing death, failing to remain at the scene and breach of probation, according to a decision by a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal for Ontario.” Lojovic has bipolar disorder and was having a manic episode when he hit Brott. - CBC
Last Friday, a 47-year-old man scaled a metal fence at an entrance to the ancient landmark, then fell and was impaled on one of the fence’s spikes, which pierced his spine. He screamed in pain and bled until he passed out; it took an ambulance crew 20 minutes to extract him. - Artnet
“Hosts of video artists … owe a debt to Birnbaum, who found clever ways of upending the one-way stream of information that pours forth in the media, and in particular on television. During the late ’70s and ’80s, she began harvesting images from pirated tapes of TV programs, then reediting their images.” - ARTnews
With a pioneering sense of eclecticism, he connected the dots between John Cage and James Brown, between Mahler and MTT’s famous grandfather, Boris Thomashefsky, a star of the New York Yiddish theater. - Los Angeles Times
Pierre Audi, the stage director and impresario whose transformation of a derelict London lecture hall into the cutting-edge Almeida Theater was the opening act in a long career as one of the world’s most eminent performing arts leaders, died on Friday night in Beijing. - The New York Times
